Apple recently launched the new Xcode and simulators for development. Included is the new iPhone 5 — called ‘Retina-4′ — simulator. It functions in the same was as the original — now called ‘Retina-3.5′.

You may have noticed that right away, your app appears letter-boxed even if you are using the full bounds of the screen: [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds], or similar.

Using the Full Height

The solution involves just one step. To activate the new screen size, simply provide a Default-568h@2x.png splash image. The image should appear in your Xcode settings under the app info and Launch Images section. The 568 is the 1.0 scale for the new height. So at scale=2.0, the final height of your new launch image should be 640px x 1136px.

Simply drop that into your project and run it. You should see your app take the entire height. If not, make sure you are always using the views’ frame size/bounds instead of a hard-set value.